


Beaches

by static_abyss



Series: Flash Bang Bingo (team orange) [15]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:19:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: Maia Roberts doesn't have a soulmate.This has set her free.Written for the beach square on the Shadowhunters Flash Bang Bingo.





	Beaches

Maia went to the beach for the first time when she was fourteen years old. Her family didn't do that kind of thing. Going to Coney Island cost money, and everyone knew better than to go to Orchard Beach. Besides, growing up there was no time for the beach. 

The beach was for people who had time and money, people who took vacations, people who didn't have parents who wanted them to be top of their class. Maia's summers were full of catch up classes, math in the summer mornings and ELA in the summer afternoons. Her parents wanted her to have a future and a job, and so Maia had no vacations, no beach, no fun.

These, however, are not the reasons she ran away. 

-

Coney Island is a mess, from it's renovated subway station down to the foamy water; chaos. Stepping down from the train station leads right into a hallway of shops selling everything from swimsuits to cheap souvenirs. Once out, there's the wooden plank of doom, shop after shop selling hotdogs and seafood, arcades, more beach shops, and all of this layered over in sand. Sand on the streets, sand on the shop floors, sand on the planks leading right up to the sand along the beach. All of that is without even mentioning the hordes of people in various states of undress, loud jubilant crowds swarming together and apart as they head towards the much louder music of Coney Island and Luna Park. 

Chaos.

And yet, there, among the noise and the heat, in the middle of the crowds, in front of the wet sand, with water lapping at her feet; there, Maia is most happy. 

-

When Maia was three years old, three long gashes appeared on her neck. The marks grew with her, each year they were longer. Each year, the marks took up more and more space on her neck, until their edges ran jagged from her lower jaw to her collarbone. They were gray, like soul marks, but no one believed they were marks. 

Maia herself never believed it. Not until Jordan.

-

Rockaway Beach doesn't have rides or arcades. It's at the end of a long row of houses with gates and clean driveways. It has maybe three food places and all of them serve some kind of new age hipster bullshit. One of the shops actually serves just arugula on wheat bread and a paste made of egg, and they call it an egg salad sandwich. Another shop sells iced herbal teas, and the third sells overpriced finger food reimagined to be expensive and annoying. 

The sand is white in Rockaway Beach, the water looks cleaner, and all the people at that beach have morphed to be the same. There are smaller groups there, less shouting, more order. The train station is farther away, up more stairs than those one finds in Coney Island, and the walk to the beach is less alive. Rockaway Beach is not Maia's favorite, but she comes anyway.

There's something about the ride, the old A train to the S train, that settles her. It's a longer ride, but a quieter ride, a cleaner journey. The walk to the beach isn't bad, far enough that Maia can get all or her thinking done, so that by the time her feet hit sand, she's past the hardest part. 

She likes to sit on the white sand of Rockaway Beach and watch the waves hit the rocks. It's easier to watch people there, because there are far fewer people than in Coney Island. It's easier to spot soul marks at the beach, fascinating to see how people hide their marks or put them on display.

Whether or not someone hides their marks says a lot about a person. Maia never hides. Maia doesn't have a soulmate.

This has set her free. 

-

For two of the most blissful months of her life, Maia had a soulmate. Or, more accurately, for two months, Maia saw the beginning of the potential for a soulmate. 

Then Jordan turned, and Maia ran.

Sometimes, that is how these things go.

-

The thing about New Jersey beaches is that one has to pay to get in. This makes it seem as though there's something special about Jersey beaches. But the sand is always the same to Maia, the waves in New Jersey beaches are a little higher, rougher than those in New York, which is not necessarily a good thing. The people are much the same, but there is less excitement in New Jersey somehow. 

Maybe it's the memories, how they weigh on Maia when she watches the waves. She may not live in New Jersey anymore, and she hasn't seen Jordan in years, but there's something about being back there that sets her on edge. It's as though by being here, she is that much closer to Jordan. 

It's not a good feeling, so Maia doesn't spend too much time in New Jersey beaches.

-

The claw marks on her neck are still gray after Jordan leaves and Maia finds Luke. She can still see the edges over her scars, the unchanged gray peeking out from Jordan's claw marks. When Maia lets herself see, when she's brave enough to look at herself in a mirror again, she notices that Jordan's claws aren't even the same size as the gray soul marks on her neck. 

There is a relief so strong in knowing this that for the first few days, Maia doesn't know what to do with it. She comes around though, at the same time that she puts in her college application. She has made her decisions.

One, she is going to finish school, because even though she probably won't see them again, her parents taught her the value of an education. 

And two, she will never have a soulmate. She will never allow anyone to come that close to her again. 

-

One day, Maia is going to stand on the shores of Playas Las Gemelas. 

Or, something to that effect.


End file.
